Indentured servitude in British America

[18] Consequently, a common solution was to transport a young worker from Britain or a German state, who would work for several years to pay off the debt of their travel costs.

[28] Indentured servitude in the Americas was first used by the Virginia Company in the early seventeenth century as a method for collateralizing the debt finance for transporting people to its newfound British colonies.

[31] The archaeological excavation of a 17th-century Maryland residence in Anne Arundel County discovered what was most likely an indentured servant who was murdered, buried and hidden beneath the floor alongside a garbage pit.

Ships' captains negotiated prices for transporting and feeding a passenger on the seven- or eight-week journey across the ocean, averaging about £5 to £7, equivalent to years of work back in England.

[35][36] Still, demand for indentured labor remained relatively low until the adoption of staple crops, such as sugarcane in the West Indies or tobacco in the American South.

Provided nevertheless, and these Presents are on this Condition, that if the said James shall pay the said Stephen Jones or his Assigns 15 Pounds British in twenty one Days after his arrival he shall be Free, and the above Indenture and every Clause therein, absolutely Void and of no Effect.

In Witness whereof the said Parties have hereunto interchangeably put their Hands and Seals the 6th Day of July in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Three in the Presence of the Right Worshipful Mayor of the City of London.

Blacksmiths, watch-makers, coppersmiths, taylors, shoemakers, ship-carpenters and caulkers, weavers, cabinet-makers, ship-joiners, nailers, engravers, copperplate printers, plasterers, bricklayers, sawyers and painters.

Richard Hofstadter notes that, as slaves arrived in greater numbers after 1700, white laborers in Virginia became a "privileged stratum, assigned to lighter work and more skilled tasks".

Contract-laborers became an important group of people and so numerous that the United States Constitution counted them specifically in appointing representatives: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years....[48]Displaced from their land and unable to find work in the cities, many of these people signed contracts of indenture and took passage to the Americas.

In the lower Atlantic colonies where tobacco was the main cash crop, the majority of labor that indentured servants performed was related to field work.

405ff) instances a 1783 report on "the import trade from Ireland" and its large profits to a ship owner or a captain, who: ...puts his conditions to the emigrants in Dublin or some other Irish port.

[51] Following King Philip's War (1675–1676) most Native Americans in the region were resigned to reservations or lived in increasingly marginal enclaves on the edges of colonial towns.

However, Historian John Sainsbury was able to document that by the mid-18th century about a third of all Native Americans in Rhode Island were indentured servants living and working in white households.

Also, the Massachusetts state archives contains numerous petitions, written from the 1730s to 1760s from Native American tribes in their jurisdiction complaining about abuses in the indenture system and predatory lending by whites.

Bound and obliged himself to Serve James Lovell Junr ... a Sea faring man, on Diverse Whale Voiages in the several seasons ... the date of these presents: viz.

Voyages ... he the said Isaac Pepenie to have one eighth and diet according to costom ... as shall be needful with his master for the sum of fifteen pounds which he the said James Lovell doth hereby agree to pay for him, ... then the sd.

Pepenie doth by these [agreements] oblige himself to attend [the] Whale Voiages at the order and direction of said James Lovell, his administrators or assigns in manner aforesaid ... this first day of October in the Eleventh year of His Majesty's Reign ano dom 1729.

The end of debtors' prisons may have created a limited commitment pitfall in which indentured servants could agree to contracts with ship captains and then refuse to sell themselves once they arrived in the colonies.

An additional problem for employers was that, compared to African slaves, European indentured servants who ran away could not always be easily distinguished from the general white population, so they were more difficult to re-capture.

"[61] Given the rapid expansion of colonial export industries in the 17th and 18th century, natural population growth and immigration were unable to meet the increasing demand for workers.

As a result, the companies that generated indentures disrupted the price signaling effect,[further explanation needed] and thus the supply of immigrants did not expand sufficiently to meet demand.

Some actors in the market attempted to generate incentives for workers by shortening the length of indenture contracts, based on the productivity of the prospective emigrant.

[clarification needed] This is attributable to higher levels of real income in Europe (a result of economic growth in the 18th century) and to a sharp decline in transportation costs.

The steamboat was not necessarily cheaper than older sailing technologies, but it made transatlantic travel much easier and comfortable, an attractive factor for high-income classes (that could easily afford immigration without indentures).

Safer seas implied smaller crews (for there was no need to man weapons on board) and also reduced insurance costs (ships were at lower risk of being captured).

The British Passenger Vessels Act 1803, which regulated travel conditions aboard ships, attempted to make transportation more expensive in order to stop emigration.

The American abolition of imprisonment of debtors by federal law (passed in 1833) made prosecution of runaway servants more difficult, increasing the risk of indenture contract purchases.

[61] The Territory of Hawaii was the last place in the United States to widely use indentures, as by 1900 the practice had been abolished in the rest of the country and replaced by alternatives such as the credit-ticket system used to transport Chinese laborers.

As a result, today Indo-Caribbean people make up a plurality in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, and a substantial minority in Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St Lucia and other Caribbean islands.